August 11, the Assembly provided for the mode of election for the members of the new Convention, and gave universal suffrage to males over 21 years. Did it ask that the delegates should be instructed to vote for the monarchy or the republic? No; but they were to be given “unlimited confidence.”[142] M. Aulard has analyzed for us the powers given by the primary assemblies to the electoral assemblies of the Departments and by the latter to the deputies. He notes that almost universally the primary assemblies conformed to the advice to grant unlimited powers to the departmental electors. At the final election of deputies, September 2, in thirty-four Departments the electors made no allusion to what powers should be bestowed upon their representatives; in thirty-six they gave them “unlimited powers” or “unlimited confidence;” in two Departments, the Lower Pyrenees and Somme, the previous question was raised upon the powers to be given; in a single one (Charente) they gave as mandate the oath taken by the electors, “to maintain equality and liberty.” In three Departments, Aisne, Eure-et-Soir, and Paris, they gave full powers with the restriction that the constitutional laws to be made shall be submitted to the ratification of the people. Thus all either “inscribed the formula prescribed by the Legislature or omitted it as useless and self-evident.”
Shall there be a monarchy or a republic? What was the voice of the departments upon this question? Only one out of the eighty-three Departments expressed a clear demand upon this point. This one, that which includes Paris, asked for “the form of a republican government.” In the other eighty-two the word republic was not pronounced. One Department, Jura, however, attempted to define in rather express terms the sort of government to be formed, “A temporary executive power, removable at the option of the people,” but it does not use the term republic.[143] Four Departments were pronounced against royalty, and swore eternal hostility thereto; these were Aube, Charente-Inférieure, Jura, and Paris. No Department asked the continuance of the monarchy, and only a few primary assemblies asked this. These assemblies were in four Departments, i. e., five in Allier, one in Ariége, three in the Gironde, and two in Lot-et-Garonne.
If we examine the proceedings of the Jacobin Club, we find that this society was devoted for some time to the King and to the constitution.[144] No bitter opposition to the monarch is found till after June 20, 1791. Then it was his violation of the constitution that caused his denunciation. After the two famous vetoes, a member proposed in the Club that they make use of Art. vi, Sec. 10, Chapt. 2, of the Constitution, “If the King puts himself at the head of an army and directs the forces against the nation ... he will be considered to have abdicated royalty.”[145] The printing of this discourse was urged on all hands. The Club frequently mentioned the calling of a convention. Its sympathy with the work of August 10 is evident,[146] and its hostility to the monarchy is more pronounced from this period.[147]
A definite suggestion of the constructive scheme was made in the Club, September 7; Chabot introduced the discussion of the form of government, and referred to two kinds, (1) the federation of the departments, and (2) a National Council, which should be presided over in turn by one of the deputies of one of the portions of the empire. Chabot favored the latter.[148] Again returning to the same question, September 10, Terrasson pronounced a preference for the federation, and cited Rousseau as his authority and America for a successful example.[149] Two days after, September 12, a letter was proposed and was adopted in the Jacobin Club of Paris, to be sent to the affiliated societies. In it were contained these three proposals, which may be regarded as setting forth the policy of the democratic party of Paris; the popular sanction or popular revision of all the constitutional decrees of the National Convention; the total abolition of royalty, and the penalty of death against those who proposed to re-establish it; the republican form of government.[150]
The significance of this movement on the part of the parent Jacobin Club must not be overlooked in tracing the progress of republicanism. The affiliation of well nigh a thousand societies in other parts of France with the parent society afforded a strong and thoroughly organized means for concerted political action.[151] The nominees of the popular societies were nearly everywhere chosen to represent the provinces in the Convention.[152] In the list of deputies from Paris appeared the names of pronounced republicans and radical Jacobins who might be expected to take a stand for a popular form of government.[153]
The Convention held its first meeting in the Tuileries; only 371 members were present. They verified their powers, organized by choosing Pétion as President, and by naming five Secretaries. September 21, they occupied the place of the Legislative Assembly in the Riding School. Here they had declared in favor of the following measures suitable for allaying the fears of disorder: (1) The National Convention declares that there can only be a constitution when it is accepted by the people; (2) that the security of person and of property is under the safeguard of the nation; (3) that all laws not abrogated, and all powers not revoked or suspended are maintained; (4) that the existing taxes shall be collected as in the past.
This effected, they were about to adjourn, when Collot d’Herbois ascended the tribune and said: “You have just passed a wise resolution, but there is one which you can not put off till tomorrow, which you can not put off till this evening, which you can not put off a single instant without being unfaithful to the wish of the nation; that is the abolition of royalty.” Unanimous applause greeted this speech. M. Grégoire proposed that “by a solemn law they sanction the abolition of royalty,” and the entire Assembly by a spontaneous movement arose and voted this proclamation by acclamation; a brief discussion followed, and then with loud bursts of applause they voted, “The National Convention decrees that royalty is abolished in France.” For some time the cry “Vive la Nation” was prolonged. At this juncture a company of 150 chasseurs were admitted to the hall and swore upon their arms to return only after having triumphed over all the enemies of liberty and equality. But as yet the word Republic had not been mentioned in the new Convention.
At the evening session of that day the time was consumed in hearing of the discourses of divers deputations that had come to congratulate the Convention upon the great work done that day. Two of these spoke of the Republic as an already established fact,[154] while on the streets, however, of the city the cry was resounding, “Vive la République.” One orator spoke of nine battalions already sent to the front, and reported that another was on the way. “They were coming,” he said, “to pray your blessing upon their arms, when they learned on the way that they were to fight no more for kings. They were happy to go to save the Republic. When they were informed that all your moments must be consecrated to it, they renounced the enjoyment of receiving your blessing and went on their way. Our Department is busy forming new battalions, in seeking to arm them, and especially in inspiring them with republican manners.” This was greeted with new applause. The section of Quatre-Nations was represented by its orator, who said among other things; “We have given three thousand men for the frontier; these are three thousand republicans.... We ask to defile through your midst. If arms are needed, speak, we shall hasten to use them in the defense of the country, too happy to pay with our blood for the Republic which you have decreed for us.” Applause greeted this expression of devotion.[155] The newspapers signaled the decree of abolition in enthusiastic descriptions, but only Brissot’s Patriote français proclaimed, “Royalty is abolished; France is a Republic.”[156]
On the morrow early in the session, Billaud-Varenne moved, and the Convention decreed, that “all public acts were to be dated from the first year of the Republic.” A new seal of State bearing the words “République de France” decided upon and national colors were proposed, but not adopted.[157] The journals took little notice of this new name with which France had been baptized. Nevertheless, the members of the Convention seemed to take it as a matter of course and to make repeated use of the term Republic. For instance, on September 22, it appeared in the following decree: “The National Convention decrees that the committees of the legislative assembly and the members of the executive council shall render an account to the National Convention of the state of their work and of the condition of the different parts of the French Republic....” The report of the Minister of the Interior, M. Gorsas, in the session of September 23, contained this report of the state of public opinion: “The will of the French is pronounced. Liberty and equality are their supreme good; they will sacrifice all to preserve these. They have a horror for the crimes of the nobles, the hypocrisy of the priests, the tyranny of kings. Kings! they wish no more of them, they know that outside of a Republic there is no liberty.” Again on September 24, the Convention decreed “that there shall be named six commissioners charged with rendering as full an account as shall be possible, of the present state of the Republic and that of Paris.” On September 25, the Convention declared “the French Republic is one and indivisible.”[158]
Here we have passed to the period in which the Republic had become an accepted fact for France. Robespierre said truly that it had “glided in furtively among the factions,” and we may say that to Frenchmen, interested in the national defence, it was a welcome change. Gouverneur Morris is authority for this in a note of October, 1792, in which he said: “These are the outlines made use of on either side to convince the public that each is exclusively the author of a Republic which the people find themselves possessed of by a kind of magic, or at least, a sleight of hand, and which, nevertheless, they are as fond of as if it were their own offspring.”[159]